1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an endoscope system, and more particularly, to an endoscope system including an optical adapter which is selected among a plurality of LED illumination built-in type optical adapters according to an intended purpose, and is detachably provided to a distal end of an insertion section of an endoscope.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, there has been generally put to practical use an endoscope system capable of observing an organ and the like in a body cavity by inserting an elongated insertion section into the body cavity, and performing various therapeutic treatments by using a treatment instrument inserted in a treatment instrument inserting channel as needed.
In addition, in an industrial field, a similar industrial endoscope system is widely used in observing or inspecting (image measuring processing) a flaw, corrosion, etc., inside of a boiler, turbine, engine, chemical plant, or the like.
As such a conventional endoscope system, there is an endoscope system including an electronic endoscope which is configured to have a photoelectric conversion element for receiving an optical image and photoelectrically converting the image into an electric signal representing the image (referred to as an image signal), for example an image-pickup element such as CCD (Charge Coupled Device) and the like, provided to a distal end of an insertion section of the endoscope.
In the endoscope system including such an electronic endoscope (hereinafter referred to simply as an endoscope), after various signal processings are performed on an image signal generated based on an optical image (observation image) of an object of shooting formed on a photoelectric conversion surface of an image-pickup element, an endoscope image can be displayed and observed by outputting the image on a monitor device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) and the like.
As for an industrial endoscope system in particular, there is an endoscope system configured such that an optical adapter is detachably provided to a distal end of an insertion section of an endoscope so as to perform an appropriate observation, image measuring processing, and the like, depending on a part to be inspected. In addition, there is put to practical use an endoscope system configured such that a desired observation and an inspection and the like including image measuring processing can be performed by selecting an optical adapter among a plurality of types of optical adapters according to a desired purpose and attaching the selected optical adapter to a distal end of an insertion section of an endoscope.
The types of optical adapters detachably provided to a distal end of an insertion section of an endoscope includes, for example, types for direct-viewing observation and side-viewing observation, for large-diameter tube and small-diameter tube, for proximal observation and distal observation, and the like, and in addition, those for stereoscopic observation and image measuring processing, which are provided with two observation optical systems (referred to as stereo optical system), those capable of infrared observation or fluorescent special observation as a special purpose, and the like.
Among these, as for the optical adapter for proximal observation, for example, an aperture value (FNo.; F-number) thereof is set larger so as to obtain deep field of depth. On the other hand, as for the optical adapter for distal observation, the aperture value thereof is set smaller so as to be able to perform an observation even with a small amount of illumination light. Furthermore, as for the optical adapter for measurement provided with the stereo optical system, it is usual that the aperture value is set larger. Thus, the optical adapter detachably provided to a distal end of an insertion section of an endoscope includes an aperture means of which aperture value is set according to an intended purpose.
In addition, the conventional endoscope system, in which a plurality of types of optical adapters are prepared and an optical adapter is arbitrarily selected and used according to a desired purpose, sometimes requires different controls depending on the types of the optical adapters attached to the distal end of the insertion section of the endoscope.
Therefore, there is proposed an endoscope system capable of detecting the type of an optical adapter which is attached to a distal end of an insertion section of an endoscope, in Japanese Patent Laying-open No. 2004-33487, for example.
The endoscope system disclosed by Japanese Patent Laying-open No. 2004-33487 described above includes an identification section, provided to an optical adapter detachably attached to a distal end of an insertion section of an endoscope, for identifying a type of the optical adapter, and further includes, in a control section of an endoscope main body, a discrimination section for detecting an identification section of the attached optical adapter and discriminating the type of the attached optical adapter, and notifying means for notifying a user of a discrimination result from the discrimination section, or an adapter information specification section which reads adapter information corresponding to the attached optical adapter from among adapter information items, which are registered in advance with respect to each type of optical adapter, based on the discrimination result sent from the discrimination section, and specifies the adapter information.
With such a configuration, in the endoscope system according to the publication, the control section of the endoscope main body detects the identification section of the optical adapter attached to the distal end of the insertion section of the endoscope by the discrimination section, discriminates the types of the attached optical adapters, and notifies the discrimination result to a user, or reads necessary adapter information based on the discrimination result and specifies the adapter information.
With such a configuration, the user can easily confirm that a desired optical adapter is attached to the distal end of the insertion section of the endoscope, and can prevent a mistake of attaching a wrong optical adapter.
Meanwhile, in recent years, there are various proposals on an LED illumination built-in type endoscope system, in which a light-emitting diode (LED) which has a small size and can be driven with low electric power is built in an optical adapter, instead of a conventionally utilized metal halide lamp and the like, as light source means for irradiating an object to be observed with illumination light.